Now for a word on mobile in the enterprise. Altimeter’s mobile analyst, Chris Silva, is working on a report that explores how managers on the business-side – not the IT – side of the organization are increasingly leading the charge to bring mobility to their workforce.

A key challenge is how to build the control and security foundation for a mobile business strategy. Chris and I will be hosting an open, no-cost webinar on Wed March 28th at 10am PT/1pm ET that will discuss the key elements of the mobile control layer, its importance, and how both the technologies and leadership elements should come together to provide a foundation for a coherent enterprise mobility strategy. [Read more…]

I’m very excited to announce Altimeter’s next webinar with special guest, Ken Blanchard (@kenblanchard), co-author of the “The One Minute Manager.” Like many people, I have a well-worn copy of the book on my shelf and it’s a reminder to constantly connect, share, and invest in relationships. This is all the more true today, with the many opportunities that new technologies provide us to do this not only easily but also at scale.

Tapping Ken’s deep experience in leadership, we’ll discuss the timeless lessons of leadership, and also what has changed. We’ll also look at what people as individuals need to do differently today in order to be more effective.

But most of all, bring your best questions as there will be plenty of time to ask questions. Don’t lose this chance to meet and talk with Ken Blanchard!

Please register below, and help us by forwarding this message to interested peers and colleagues.

Webinar: Leadership Lessons: The Power of Relationships in the Facebook Era, with Ken Blanchard & Charlene Li

Description: Join Ken Blanchard and Charlene Li for a conversation about how to apply the timeless lessons of leadership during a time when organizations are being transformed by social technologies. Ken, the co-author of “The One Minute Manager,” brings 30+ years as a renowned leadership expert, respected consultant, author, and keynoter.

Together, Ken and Charlene will discuss how the simple truths of leadership still hold true, even during this age of social media. That’s because both hold relationships at the center of their leadership and business philosophies. Specific topics include:

How do you unleash the power and creativity of people inside an organization?

How do you honor the contributions of your founders and long-time employees even as your organization grows and changes?

How do you bring out the best in others?

How can you successfully use social technologies to achieve these goals, while remaining true to how you are as a leader and as an organization?

Don’t miss this opportunity to hear Ken Blanchard and Charlene Li share timeless wisdom about human relationships, even as technology amplifies the speed and volume of interactions. Learn from two experts about how to keep relationships at the center of your leadership efforts.

The one thing that struck me was that many of these forecasts didn’t provide a reasoning for why these trends (and not others) were picked. Having done my own predictions and trends to watch forecasts in the past, it was very much a subjective list.

I decided to approach this task from a different perspective. Instead of thinking about the trends first, I wanted to create a framework that would help organizations figure out themselves which disruptive trends they should prioritize and focus on. That’s because companies have limited people, time, and budget to focus on these disruptive technologies that are far-off on the horizon. They can’t focus on everything, so how do you pick and choose?

As a business focused on companies helping companies thrive with disruptive technologies, the work we do at the strategic level focuses on creating a strategy that’s robust and resilient in the face of these new tech forces. What amazes me is that companies can often see these tech disruptions coming from a mile away — and do nothing about it. That’s because they don’t have a way to prioritize, think, and plan a strategy around the technologies that matter. Guiding my thinking in this area is the outstanding work of people like Clay Christiansen, who have been thinking about disruptive innovations for decades.

I believe there are three major drivers that make a disruptive technology important to a particular business. While I frame these at a high level, each organization should look at these drivers to prioritize their focus.

User Experience. Does this technology pass the “no manual needed” test? Does it allow people to connect in new ways? Twitter is powerful as a platform, but inscrutable if you’re not familiar or comfortable with @ and DMs — which thereby limits its disruptive power. In comparison, social networks like Facebook are intuitive and provide tremendous value with the new experiences they enable.

Business model. Simply put, can you make more money, or save costs because of these new technologies? And by using the technologies better and faster than your competitor, can you gain an advantage? An example of this is YouTube, which when deployed in a strategic way can lower acquisition and support costs for companies.

Ecosystem value. The most disruptive technologies though are when ecosystems get impacted. Streaming, on-demand video seemed to be the dominion of cable companies but then along comes Netflix who wasn’t even in the streaming business at all — but has the relationship with movie viewers who were sick of keeping track of red envelopes. Value shifts with the entrant of a new player who is able to tap into this new technology.

I’ll be doing a Webinar on this topic — and sharing the top trends I’m watching — on Thursday, Feb. 17th at 2pm PST (go to this link at that time). I’ll be using Slideshare.net’s new Zipcast service, so be one of the first to give it a try with me. I’ll likely be doing repeat presentations, and will update this post with that information.

I welcome your thoughts on the basic outlines of this framework. What am I missing? What else should I be considering? How can I refine my thinking further? And how does your organization go about prioritizing which disruptive technologies to focus on — and creating resilient strategies to thrive with them?

I’ll be going into greater detail the individual technologies over the next few weeks as my research digs deeper into this area, and I hope you’ll come along with me on this journey.

I conducted the third of four Webinars on the ideas around “Open Leadership” and am making available the slides as well as a video recording. This Webinar examines what it means to be an open leader — the characteristics, mindsets, skills, and behaviors.

Friday, May 21, 2010 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
– How do open leaders structure and manage openness with policies?
– Why is embracing failure so important to open leadership?
– How do open leaders deal with failure?

I conducted the second of four Webinars on the ideas around “Open Leadership” and am making available the slides as well as a video recording. This Webinar laid out how to create a an open strategy with four goals, and how to measure each of those goals. As I discussed in the first Webinar, leadership — especially in the era of social technologies — is about the relationships that are enabled and transformed. So I also include a discussion about how the long-term relationship, as measured by customer lifetime value, needs to be recalculated.

Note: I was not able to record this Webinar but hope to do so in the near future.

How Open Leaders Embrace & Recover From FailureFriday, May 21, 2010 10:00 AM – 11:00 AM PDT
– How do open leaders structure and manage openness with policies?
– Why is embracing failure so important to open leadership?
– How do open leaders deal with failure?